


A Shelby In Margate

by boogiewrites



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Love, Romance, Season 5 Spoilers, Unrequited Love, back from the dead, shelby sister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 01:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boogiewrites/pseuds/boogiewrites
Summary: (Alfie x Shelby Sister One Shot S5 Ep.6)Penny Shelby has only wanted one thing, to not be a Shelby. When she finds out the truth after mourning the loss of her almost love from afar, perhaps he can help her achieve that pipe dream.





	A Shelby In Margate

A Shelby sister is something no one asks to be, and certainly something no one really wants. Especially when the relationship to a very bold and brash man named Tommy Shelby causes such grief in your life that you give up on finding a happiness that most women expect out of life and you move forward with the form of Scarlet Letter on your face that being Shelby lends.

Penelope or Penny Shelby was as crude and difficult as the rest of her siblings. Born after Tommy and before Ada, her darling sass of a little sister that she took great pride in helping raise. With the Romani blood running fiercely in her veins just like her Aunt Polly, before Tommy was a household name in Birmingham she could’ve gotten away with saying she wasn’t a Shelby at all due to the dark complexion she held. Olive skin set her apart and caused her enough trouble from the prejudice of the travelers and Irish alike she came from. She held that same icy blue eyes of her older brother, and hair as black as the coal from the fires they grew up with. A smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks like her mother and a glare that could cause a grown man to tremble like her closest Aunt Polly.

Despite her strong exterior, the pain and turmoil of her life, mostly derived from her older brothers had left her soft and weary on the inside. She drank to cope, as did they all. She didn’t turn to the drugs, as if Tommy would’ve ever let her hear the end of it. She had been stronger, both inside and out only a few years prior. The final blow leaving her gaunt and haunted was the loss of a man she had thought of as her own, even if he never had been in any formal sense. Oh, how she’d loved him. His ability to outsmart her seemingly unstoppable brother, his smart mouth and intimidating physique. He was unlike anything she’d ever experienced and found herself enamored with the only slightly older man who she saw as her escape from forever being known as a Shelby.

There were few names as infamous as Solomons, and she knew that name would be her ticket out of the shadow of her brother. Unfortunately, Alfie was a bit more hesitant than she. Not that she wasn’t a lovely little bird, reminding him of some forest nymph from a fairy tale his mother would’ve told him as child with her haunting eyes and a smile so out of place with its genuine affection for him among a clan of troublesome Shelby’s it made his chest stir in a way he feared. She had proven herself loyal to him, little hints she knew he was clever enough to catch in the fleeting moments alone they shared. He knew she fancied him, lingering touches of her hand to his as she spoke softly and quietly. Eye contact that never wavered and that bloody smile she only had for him. It wasn’t until an encounter that her brother didn’t know about to this day, that he finally knew her intention.

“Penny, love? What are you doing here?”

“Saving your stubborn arse.” she chokes out, hands shaking with the heavy pistol between them, still smoking from the bullet just gone through the Italians head that was about the draw on him.

“Does your brother know you-”

“Fuck Tommy!” the tears finally break in her eyes and begin their descent down her cheeks. She lowers the gun and lays it on a crate beside her, slumping onto a hip height box with the exhaustion shown on her face. “He’s the reason John’s dead. The reason why these fucking wops are after us. And now YOU. I can’t lose anyone else.”

“There there, pet.” he says pushing the gun away and not knowing what to do except take her hand.

“I came to tell you they were coming for you. I overheard it. I couldn’t let them kill you, Alfie, I can’t lose you too.” she begins to sob, something he never thought a Shebly was capable of at that point. Grabbing his shirt she pushes herself into his arms.

“Lose me?”

“Alfie you’re too clever to not know how I feel about you.” she shakes her head and doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I had…suspected.” he pauses, his gut hurting for the poor lass. “But your brother.”

“I said FUCK TOMMY SHELBY! I never asked for this! I don’t want to BE a Shelby! I’m done. Finished. I can’t take life in his shadow.”

“Penny…love…” he says softly, “I”m leavin’ ya know. Retirin’. I’m finished with this life, I know they’re comin’ for us all. And I’m takin’ my gains and I’m gone.”

“Where?”

“That’s no concern for you. The less you know the better.”

“Take me with you.”

“That would be the end of me.” he lets out an amusing sound, almost a laugh.

“Alfie. I’ve admired you from afar for so long. It feels almost childish to think of you as my own when we’ve never even discussed it. We’ve barely been allowed time alone. But I feel something so strongly for you. It must be love.”

“You are not a child at all. And I’ve known by the way that bloody smile takes me out at my knees like a steel pipe that there was somethin’ there.” He sees the hope flicker in her eyes and his heartbreaks. “But we can’t. I’m not the man for you. As much as I’d like to be. It ain’t me love.”

She leaves with gunpowder on her hands and tears staining her dress that night. The news he was dead found her not too long after that. And now she stood mere yards away, unknowingly, from the man she’d loved from afar that she had mourned and still thought was dead.

—–

“What fuckin’ else can I do for ya Tom? From the way that hats being wrung I know that ain’t all ya want of me.” Alfie gruffs, reclined in his velvet chair that faces that balcony of his mansion in MArgate where he hides.

“There is one more person… that I want to know you’re alive.” his voice is as flat and dead as his face lends you to believe he is.

“Not asking for much, eh?” Alfie raises a brow. “Who?”

“Someone that deserves to know.” the way his shoulders slouched told Alfie everything he needed to know. Guilt that sat heavy on Tommy’s shoulders for what he’d almost done. And not for Alfie’s sake, but for Penny’s.

“Mmmph.” he nods. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Best she thinks I”m dead. What use as I to her now?”

“I knew she loved you.” he states plainly.

A fact that Alfie actually hadn’t known. “Did you?”

“You think I don’t know me own baby sister?” he asks with a slight twist of anger.

“Said no such thing.”

“You’ll want to thank her for Cyril being taken such good care of. She’s treated that dog as if it were her own son.” a ghost of a smile crosses his lips. “That is after she cried for a month after she heard you were dead.” he pauses. “You know she cried more over you than her own husband?”

Alfie only nods. Knowing like most women her age her first husband died in the war. He realizes she had truly meant what she said. “We never…” Alfie clears his throat. “Y’know.” his attempts at being respectful amuse Tommy deeply.

“I knew that too.” he nods.

“Why do you want to hurt the poor girl again?”

“She visits your grave, Alfie. Just the other day she was telling Cyril stories of his papa.”

Alfie’s stomach turns. Had he made a mistake? Had he been too selfish.

“I take it by you being here she doesn’t know you’re the one what done it.”

“She does not.”

“Mmm. And how are you going to work around that?”

“Once she knows you are not dead I won’t have to.”

“I know you’re gambling man Tommy but those are steep odds. Against you, I might add.”

“I know her. She’ll forgive me.”

“That's’ what you bank on every time innit?”

Tommy glares at him. A silence falls between them as Alfie looks out to the sea from the open set of doors on the balcony.

“Alright.” Alfie grunts and sits up, taking a deep breath. “Since she’s taken care of my dog. ‘Spose she deserves to know.” he nods, taking a heavy sigh. “But I might frighten her now. She won’t be seein’ who I was.”

“I’ve heard her prayers, Alfie. When she thinks no one, not even God is listenin’ to her anymore. She won’t be frightened.”

A grunt is all he can say to such a thing.

“I’ll go fetch her.” Tommy says as he groans and stands.

“Ya fuckin’ what? Now?”

“She’s just outside.”

“What the fuckin’ hell Tom?” he gruffs out angrily. “Ya can’t just appear to a man in such a way and demand things of him in a state like I am!”

“She deserves to know,” he states plainly again. “I brought her because I didn’t want you going back on your word after you had time to think about it.”

Alfie gives his signature frown. A bottom lip jutted over his mustache in frustration. “Fuckin’ ‘ell. Not even had time to think ‘bout it!”

“That’s the purpose this serves. She deserves to have a real reaction. Not your carefully crafted answers.”

“What do you want of me Tom?” he asks plainly. “You surely don’t want her to be with me? Especially not NOW.” he juts the scarred side of his face forward.

“It’s no issue to me how you look. That’d be up to her, wouldn’t it? But have you known Penny to be shallow?”

Alfie sits back in his chair, elbows on his knees and looks at the dusty rug beneath his boots. “Lass is as deep as the ocean.” he mutters. She’d told him everything he as to her, a body was nothing but a vessel for his soul she said. Something he’d thought a bit naive back then, but upon reflection he found it taking a new meaning to him. Maybe a Shelby was right about something stranger things had happened.

“Then I’ll fetch her. I suggest you figure out which side of yourself you’re going to be honest with.”

—–

Penny in her summer dress wanders the garden as she was instructed, feeling the kiss of a sea salt breeze against her face. She loved the sea, and so rarely had seen it, felt it against her skin. The open expanse of it, the infinite mystery and possibility it held fascinated her. Tommy’s voice breaks her from her reflection, leaning against a stone wall and looking out at the waves crashing into the daunting cliffs.

“Come now Penny, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

She nods and fusses with her windblown hair. “This house is lovely.” she almost coos as she crosses the threshold.

Alfie hears her voice. What sort of man had he been to hurt her how he did. To prolong it in such a way. She was a rose among the thorns of her family, the women the only ones worth a damn out of them. She’d saved his life, took in a painful reminder of him and cared for Cyril after he was gone, kept his memory alive and he’d abandoned her. If she shot him where he stood he’d deserve it.

“Look at all this.” he can feel the genuine lilt like a songbird to her voice. “Who lives here? This place is fantastic. Look at all these interesting and eclectic things. You could spend hours and never see the end of it.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Tommy says standing in the archway into the room where Alfie stood. “Here’s the owner. You can discuss it all with him.” What a loaded statement and delivered so cooly.

Penny walks slowly, taking in her surroundings with great interest before her head turned and saw the man silhouetted in the light of the sun, framed by two open patio doors with that same sea breeze fluttering the long curtains that hung. She freezes, eyes fluttering in confusion. That posture, that build. The vest and the white billowy sleeves. A glint of light of the rings that adorned his overworked hands. It was him.

“Wh-I- H-how?” she whispers out, not even loud enough for Alfie to hear, but Tommy heard every beat of her heart as he watched the realization come over her face.

“‘Ello, love.” that warm, liquor voice that burned and soothed hit her like a hammer, taking her knees out from under her as Tommy caught her.

She squeaks and tears appear hot and plentiful in her eyes. “You can’t…you…” her breathing wheezes and she holds onto Tommy for support, her body failing her out of shock.

He turns his good side first, seeing her just as lovely as she ever had been. Sun-kissed skin from the season spent in the north in the caravans, that long wavy hair that framed her shocked face, touseled perfectly by the winds of MArgate. Despite the posh sort of dress Tommy was now known for, she was still in simple cotton. Her boots tight around her ankles and shiny, dirt under her nails from the garden. A salt of the earth woman that was wrongfully placed in the shit hole of Birmingham away from nature where she belonged.

“Alfie.” she finally forces out.

“Yeah, love. I’m afraid it’s me.” he says with a pain in his voice, one of fear of rejection as he lets the light show his true side as he called it. The side of him that showed what a monster he had been, the monster he was.

Her face remains unchanged. “Alfie you…” she wheezes and gasps, he takes a step towards her and she pushes out of her brother’s arms. Stumbling with the numbness in her limbs as she finds herself once again sobbing into the shirt of the man she still loved. No matter how hard she’d tried not to over these last years.

“There, there, pet.” he says just as he had the last time she’d heard it, but this time it is accompanied by the wrapping of warm and affectionate arms around her. He shushes her as she cries, soaking his shirt and hiccuping, a hand stroking her hair, the other rubbing her back. All things she’d dreamed of so often she’d lost track of if they’d ever happened or not.

“Is this real? Or did I jump off the cliffs outside and now I’ve somehow found myself not in hell?” she manages to get out with her forehead pressed to his chest.

“You’d most certainly go to heaven. And since I am here with you, I’m afraid that means we’re both very much still alive.”

“HOW? I heard you were shot!” her voice break as she looks up from his chest to meet his face. Seeing nothing but the man she’d longed for. She’d told God she didn’t care what state he was in, just give him back to her. Her last chance at happiness, her last shot to have someone who truly could understand her and her life.

“I was. As you can tell.” he shrugs his shoulder on the marked side of his face. Just as Tommy as said, and Alfie is fully frustrated he was correct, she reaches up to touch his face without even an inkling of regret or fear o disgust.

“Are you still hurt?” is her concern and he takes a long, deep breath to compose himself. He didn’t deserve her. Maybe he’d known all along and that was why he’d told her now. Because deep down, who gave a fuck what Tommy Shelby thought.

“It does sometimes, yeah.” he nods, speaking softly as her fingertips move over the raised scar on his cheek, looking over the milky eye that was blinded by the same bullet that made the disfigurement she was touching as if was perfect skin. “Certainly doesn’t right now though.” his voice is quiet, looking into her bright eyes full of tears for him.

One dark eye under the same heavy brow and a fuller beard now that hid those full lips, unphased by the shot, beaming down at her with what she could’ve sworn was affection. “How?”

“Man that shot me can’t shoot worth a damn is how.”

He sees storm clouds darken her eyes in a more clear moment of recognition. “Who?”

“That’s a question for your brother.” he leans in close, almost touching his forehead to hers.

She spins out of his arms, suddenly full of vengeance and steady. “Who?” she demands.

Tommy takes his stand. “I did.”

“YOU BASTARD!” she lunges at him and is whisked off her feet by Alfie.

“Can’t argue with that.” Tommy mumbles.

“YOU KNEW! YOU FUCKING KNEW HOW I FELT ABOUT HIM AND YOU TRIED TO KILL HIM? YOU FUCKING WANK STAIN! YOU ABSOLUTE MAD BASTARD!” she screams and fights against Alfie’s arms to maim her brother. He would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so focused on keeping her from hurting herself.

“I asked him to!” Alfie shouts and he feels her little legs stop kicking.

Her head shakes in confusion. It was a lot on the poor lass to take in all at once. “Wha-What?” she squeaks and keeps her eyes on Tommy as Alfie sits her feet back to the floor.

Tommy stands with a confident nod. Not sure if he was proud that Alfie took credit for what had happened, because he had all but pulled the trigger.

“I asked him to, Penny.”

“Why?!” she screeches with a hand to her chest as she faces him, back humped over and heart feeling as if it might give out.

“The doctor. Wrongfully so told me I had cancer love.”

Once again her knees fail her as he scoops her up into his arms, seeing her head wobble and eyes lose focus.

“Poor things gonna faint.” he mutters, sitting in his chair and pulling her into his lap.

“She’ll be fine. Give her a moment.” Tommy says with complete faith. He was asking a lot of her, but he knew she could take it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone through with it. As hard as he was, as much as he’d agree he was a mad bastard, he didn’t want to purposely hurt his sisters. It just so happened they got in the way of his plans at times and Penny found herself right in the middle of them currently.

“C-cancer?” she asks with a gasp of air, fighting to stabilize herself. She felt light-headed, but the arms around her helped, the beat of the heart under her palm helped the most.

“Yeah. Told me I was gonna die. I didn’t wanna waste away y’know? Not any sort of death for a man to face.” she shook his head. “Your brother and I. Had a…sort of agreement. To kill one another if it came down to it, yeah?”

“What in the fuck are you talking about?”

Her brash tone makes him chuckle. “The correct response, yes love. “ he nods. “I was told I was dyin’. Had Tommy meet me on that beach out there to kill me. And he thought he did. But add it to the long list of things your brother innit good at.”

His brows shift and rise and fall across her face, eyes wide and questioning. “You thought you were going to die. So you wanted ti over with.”

“I told you she’d understand.” Tommy adds from across the room, staying silent and still.

“Of course my friend’s mum… it would’ve been a kindness to end it for her.” she reflects. “So… you knew?” she asks with hands no longer shaking. “When I… told you about…how I…:

“I did.” he nods. “I wasn’t gonna put you through that. That’s not…that ain’t me, love.”

“I would have.” she states with conviction and his shoulders falter at the hurt in her eyes. “I mourned you. I cried until nothing came out any longer. I drank, I took pills, tonics, hoping to wake up wherever you were. I would’ve still…It wouldn’t have stopped me.”

“You don’t mean that…”

“Don’t tell me what I fucking mean Alfie!”

Tommy smiles from across the room.

“Right, right, sorry mate.” he sputters out with true surprise in his raised brow. Something about this little lady cut him down from newly adorned god status to a man stuttering in apology. Tommy knew at that moment he’d made the right decision.

Her breathing heavy and fast, she glares at him. “My head is spinning, my heart is on fire and my stomach feels like it’s gonna fall out my arse and I don’t know if want to kill you myself or .or,..” her bottom lip gives her away, a hand to his cheek as she shakes her head and groans.

“…love me?” he asks with a raise of the brow he could. It was a gamble to ask. But with her heart racing like a hummingbird, he could feel against his own chest where she sat.

“How dare you,” she whispers back. But her face isn’t offended, a thumb drifting softly over his blind eye and to his temple. “I can kill you and still love you.” she offers with a smile finally gracing her lips. “I have…I mean, I do. Still. Even now.”

“With me lookin’ like this.”

“Like what? Like a strong man who defied death? Don’t be daft Alfie. I wanted you back no matter what. And I meant it. I meant despite you hiding, letting me think you were dead. Oh, letting poor Cyril think you were dead.” her brows furrow and his heart warms like it hadn’t in decades.

He gives her a smile she finds most peculiar. She’d never seen it before on his face.

“What?” she whispers.

“You, love.”

“What about me?”

The smile remains, followed by a sigh as he looks over her face. Hurt, but holding no hate for him. He puts his hand to her cheek to mirror her own delicate actions. “Why me Penny, eh? Surely other men deserve a woman like you more than me.”

“No other man can handle me. And you know this.”

Another, wider grin from him.

“If I could choose who I love, and I can’t, I’d choose someone else because I know you would be nothing but a pain in the arse but….goddammit Alfie I do.” she gives his face a little shake and presses her forehead to his.

“I don’t deserve a woman like you. You know that right?”

“No one deserves anything, Alfie. You know this. Things just happen.”

“Fuck me, I really don’t deserve ya.” he groans and kisses her forehead.

“But do you want me? Did you ever?”

“You should know I did. I only wanted to protect you.”

“What about now?” she asks with brave eyes that pierce into his, not allow him to look away. “There’s nothing to hide behind now. No protecting me. Just… end it now or let this be the beginning.”

“Fuckin’ ‘ell…” he sighs. “How are you a Shelby with a mind that says things like that?” A slow sweep of his thumb over her lips makes her eyes shut and held her breath for an answer. A man like him couldn’t touch a woman like this without something in his heart for her, could he? “I… did and I…do. A man like me… he’s not so good at matters of the heart. The mind is where my talents lie.”

“Then let this be your first lesson.” she kisses the tip of his thumb. “Tell me you love me.”

“Penny I-”

“Thomas, leave.” she interrupts, both hands on Alfie’s face, that smile he’d missed and dreamed of from time to time back and in full force, assaulting his sensibility.

“Already got my hat on. You know my number.” he says and saunters away, content by the way things had played out.

“Now tell me Alfie, love. Let me hear it.” she whispers, nuzzling her nose against his.

“I love you Penny.” he manages with closed eyes. “You’re strong and brilliant. Not suited for the name of Shelby at all.”

She smiles against his lips, feeling the words warm over her skin like honey tea. “Perhaps you could come up with a way to change that?” she grins and he’s blessed with her soft laugh once again.

“I do believe I could.” he coos and finally gives her the soft kiss that she’d been dreaming of. A promise she’d get what she always wanted, to not be called Shelby.


End file.
